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Starwood is offering a sale on Starpoints with SPG members currently eligible for a discount of 35% on the regular price. With that in mind I’m going to use this post to take a look at the various ways you can use Starpoints purchased in this promotion and offer my opinion on where the better value lies.
The Offer Rules
- Buy 5,000 or more Starpoints to get a 35% discount
- Transactions must be completed by 11:59 PM ET 16 March 2018 to be eligible for the discount.
- Purchased points do not count towards Preferred Guest, Gold Preferred Guest, or Platinum Preferred Guest Status.
- Transactions are final and non-refundable.
- All other terms and conditions of the Starwood Preferred Guest Program apply.
- SPG members can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints per account per calendar year
Link to the sale and the full terms & conditions
The Math
Starwood has been typically kind and set out the promotion so you’re not penalized for buying a low number of Starpoints – whether you buy 5,000 or 30,000 Starpoints you’ll still pay the same cost/point.
If you purchase 5,000 Starpoints (the minimum needed to trigger the 35% discount)……
…or the full 30,000 annual allowance….
…you will still be buying Starpoints for 2.275 cents each.
Is It Worth Buying Starpoints In This Promotion?
Well, that really depends on how you plan to use the Starpoints after you’ve bought them.
Buying For Starwood Reward Night Redemptions
This is what the Starwood award chart looks like (click to enlarge):
Ignoring the cost of the points for the moment, I’ve never been able to see the value in booking SPG awards at properties that cost more than 12,000 points/night – I find the rest to be overpriced (but that may just be me).
When you factor in the fact that Starpoints cost approximately 2.28 cents each in this promotion I see even less value in the award chart…except possibly at the lower levels,
A category 4 property illustrates my point quite well.
An award night at a Cat. 4 property costs 10,000 points so, if you were to buy points in this promotion to book that award, the award would cost approximately $228.
I don’t consider that to be good value and you won’t have much better luck the further you progress up the award chart.
The Four Points San Jose Airport is a Cat. 4 property – would you pay $228 to stay here?
If you can book a category 1 or 2 property for 2,000 – 3,000 points/night the effective cost would be between $46 and $70 per night….and that can be a great deal.
Buying For Marriott Reward Night Redemptions
Since Marriott merged with Starwood we have been able to transfer Starpoints over to Marriott Rewards at a rate of 1:3.
This means that a purchase of 15,000 Starpoints would net 45,000 Marriott Rewards points which is enough for a top-level Marriott redemption:
15,000 Starpoints would cost $341.25 in this promotion….
…and when even mediocre mid-tier Marriott properties can go for more than $500/night……
……this can be a great use of Starpoints.
Buying For Marriott Flight & Hotel Redemptions
Quite a few people buy Starpoints in a promotion like this just to then purchase a Flight & Hotel package.
All the Marriott Flight & Hotel packages charts can be found via this link but I’ll just use one example to show why this is a popular option:
Three facts to bear in mind:
- Starpoints convert to Marriott Rewards points at a rate of 1:3
- Starpoints cost 2.275 cents each in this promotion.
- You’ll need to have some Starpoints or Marriott Rewards points already in your account to make the most of this tactic
If you purchase 30,000 Starpoints you could then convert them to 90,000 Marriott Rewards points, add them to your existing Marriott Rewards points balance and then redeem them for one of the Flight & Hotel packages.
Bangkok Marriott Sukhumvit – A Marriott Cat. 5 property
If you were to then redeem 270,000 Marriott Rewards points for a 7-night Category 1-5 package you would get 7 nights in a hotel and 120,000 miles (or Avios) as well.
Because 150,000 points would buy you 7 nights in a Cat. 5 hotel anyway you would have essentially traded the other 120,000 Marriott Rewards Points (270,000 – 150,000) for 120,000 airline miles/Avios.
A 1:1 conversion from Marriott Rewards points to airline miles is a great transfer ratio and would mean that the 30,000 Starpoints you purchased would have converted into airline miles at a 1:3 ratio.
Put another way, you would have just bought airline miles for 0.76 cents each.
Buying For Airline Transfers
This is my preferred use of Starpoints for two reasons:
- I can get some pretty good value out of them this way
- Because it doesn’t require booking a hotel stay like the Marriott Rewards Flight & Hotel packages.
One of the many reasons why Starpoints are so popular is because they can be transferred across to a significant number of major airline loyalty programs (35 at the last count) and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, Starpoints transfer over at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 1 Airline mile.
This makes Starpoints a very versatile currency to hold.
In addition to this, if you make sure you transfer Starpoints across in multiples of 20,000, Starwood adds on a 5,000 bonus.
That makes the ideal number of Starpoints to transfer over to an airline’s loyalty program 20,000, 40,000 or 60,000 (maximum allowed in one transfer is 79,999) as these sized transfers will earn you 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 bonus points/miles respectively.
How much are you getting the airline miles for?
If you were to purchase 20,000 Starpoints in the current promotion it would cost $455….
…and those Starpoints could then be converted to 25,000 airline miles (for most airlines).
These airline miles have essentially cost $455 which, for 25,000 airline miles, comes to 1.82 cents/mile.
Clearly this is more expensive than using the Marriott Flights & Hotels redemption but this conversion has two advantages to it:
- All the points you buy are going towards airline miles – none are being used for a hotel that you may or may not need.
- Because you don’t have a hotel to book you don’t have the issues that come with booking a hotel on points.
How To Buy Starpoints
Here’s a link to the promotion page.
Starwood sells Starpoints through Points.com so you will not get a “travel” category bonus when using a credit card like one of the Chase Sapphire cards.
This means that you should use whatever credit card earns you the points you value most or the card on which you need to hit a minimum spend.
Bottom Line
A 35% discount is the best offer we ever seen on Starpoints sales but that’s not a good enough reason to buy them.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Starwood redemptions you’ll probably be better off using them for lower category properties.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Marriott redemptions you may be able to get some great deals during peak times.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints for Marriott Flight & Hotel packages don’t forget that the number of points you can purchase won’t be enough on their own – make sure you have points in your account to purchase the package you’re after.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to then convert them to airline miles then make sure you do the math and make sure the airline you’re transferring them to actually releases the awards you’re looking to book.
Most importantly, make sure you don’t buy Starpoints to stockpile – no one knows when they’ll be devalued.
